


Death and the Dame

by minnabird



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Bisexual Female Character, Blades, Character Death, Film Noir, Fire, Getting Together, Ghosts, Magic, Major Character Undeath, Multi, Murder, Past Han/Qi'ra, Polyamory, Private Investigators, Resurrection, Road Trips, Talking To Dead People, Trick or Treat: Trick, Undead, established Leia/Han
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-28 09:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: Qi’ra is a private investigator with one ear tuned into supernatural frequencies. When Leia Organa walks into her office, looking like an angel, she expects a simple haunting case. Instead, she finds herself on the run and on the search for answers, drawn ever deeper into Leia’s troubles, and into the path of Han, Leia’s boyfriend, who might just know more about Qi’ra than she does about herself.





	Death and the Dame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



> Thanks to Prinzenhasserin for betaing.

A faint note, like a curl of smoke, drifted up from the woman in my office. She wore all white; the creamy folds of her coat almost glowed against the dingy-dark wallpaper. She looked like an angel—but that wasn’t what held my attention. It was that insistent sour note, throbbing in my right ear.

“Everything I say here is confidential?” the client asked. Under the well-tailored clothes and elaborate twists of her hair, she held herself like a general. 

“Everything,” I said. 

The client pulled a folded newspaper from inside her coat and slid it across the desk to me. The headline at the top read _Influential Local Couple Killed in Tragic Fire._ I recognized the article from last week. The couple in question were Breha and Bail Organa. The Organa family was old enough money that their name was everywhere in town, but I’d never heard of them dealing in the dirtier business, unlike most of their peers. I looked from the article up to my client and raised an eyebrow.

“I’m their daughter,” she said flatly. “And I keep seeing…” Her lips pressed together tightly as she searched for words.

“Let me guess,” I said gently. “It’s an afterimage of one of them. Maybe it talks to you, or appears to move around you. Others don’t see it, but you know they’re there.” The client nodded, her eyes meeting mine, too intense. There was the sorrow, and the fear, I expected, buried deep under layers of willpower. From the depths of my memory, I pulled up her name, “Leia,” I said, reaching out to rest my fingers on her wrist. “I’ll be able to see them, too.”

It was winter, and the sun was already low in the sky as we set out. I held the door for Leia and settled her into the passenger seat of my car. She directed me out of my own neighborhood of shopfronts and apartments. The sidewalks opened up into swathes of brown grass, trees spread venerable arms overhead, and the houses marched back farther and farther from the road.

I knew where we were going as soon as we turned the corner. I could see the rubble from there: half of a once-white colonial house reduced to blackened heaps, behind tense lines of crime scene tape. I parked across the street and glanced at Leia. 

She had been quiet except for her directions, watching the scenery go by through the window. For a moment, before she noticed I was looking, she just looked tired. Then she raised her eyes, and in an instant, she pulled herself back into her earlier manner. I admired her speed. “We’re not going into the house. Around,” she said, already climbing out of the car. 

“Where are the cops?” I muttered, looking for signs of movement. No one. “With a city council member and the CEO of the Organa Investments Group dead, they should be swarming the place.”

“Well, they’re not.” I watched the tight set of her retreating shoulders, then followed her around the back, still caught up in that strange detail. 

“Mother,” Leia said, and I heard the change before I saw it.

The line between life and death is not as impermeable as people would like to think. I should know: I’ve been through to the other side. When I was brought back from death, I came back without my memories or even a name, and my right ear stayed back in that strange country, forever tuned to the presence of death. Sometimes, I hear only hints left behind on people and places, strange musical hums and drones. When the dead are near, they’re so much louder. And so I knew, before I saw it, when Breha Organa arrived: what had been a soft, low note became a swelling jangle as a transparent woman stepped through the dry rosebushes.

“Leia,” she said, her hand raised as if to cup her daughter’s cheek. The woman flickered, like a guttering light bulb, and she only said, “Leia,” again, with increasing urgency.

“That’s all she says,” Leia said. “I had hoped—she seems to want to say something more. I don’t know how I know; I can feel it.”

“Yes,” I said slowly. I could feel that something was off here. Could hear it: the sound in my ear flickered, too, loud and quiet, on and off. I rubbed at it, trying to think through the discordance. 

There are ways of blocking out these presences; I used many of them in my work. Maybe there was something hidden here to stop Breha Organa returning to the place of her death. Finding it, in a place this big, would take forever, but there were other ways to speak to a ghost. 

Something wasn’t right here. The protections against the dead, the lack of police, the unquiet spirit of Breha Organa—my instincts screamed.

“I can help you with this, but we need to get out of here,” I said, backing away from the apparition.

Half an hour later, we waited for Breha to answer our call. I shivered at the warm breeze that curled around us. The wood floor was cold and hard against my knees, the air in my office little more forgiving. _Leia_ , the wind whispered, below hearing, almost below thought. Leia’s hands twitched where they were gripped in mine. “Tell her you hear her,” I said, half-whispering. I kept my eyes closed; I needed to focus.

“I’m here. I can hear you.” Her voice trembled, and the air with it—a great silent reverberation that swept outward from the circle we were kneeling in to fill the room. 

“Leia, my darling.” The wind’s voice was audible, firmly here, this time. Leia’s gasp disappeared under her mother’s words. “I have so much to tell you, but I fear our time is short. You must be strong now. I had hoped to keep you safe forever, but they have found you. The fire was meant for you.”

“For _me_? Why would somebody want—” 

“ _Listen_. Your true father has discovered your identity. Forgive me. Forgive us for keeping it secret, for keeping you here; we believed we could stop anyone from finding out. You must flee the city; find Obi-Wan Kenobi—"

With a noise like the world ending, my office door crashed open. My hold on Breha snapped as my eyes flew open. Fire roiled around the invader, the acrid smell making us cough. I tightened my grip on Leia’s hands and wrenched her to her feet. “Through the window; there’s a fire escape. _Run_.” I dove behind my desk and came up with my blades. I vaulted over it, and papers scattered everywhere, dove-winged. Some caught sparks as they drifted to the ground, and they crackled under my feet as I stepped forward. 

I knew this creature, or its kind, anyway: a desiccated body, wrapped in a cloak of flame that didn’t affect the withered flesh. Its sightless eyes fixed on me, and it reached out with grasping hands. If I wanted to destroy it, and quench the flame that was already threatening my office, it would take time and a grueling fight. I thought of the envelope of bills shoved into my coat pocket. I remembered the steel core I’d seen behind Leia’s eyes. I knew this kind of monster better than I knew myself—but had she, lily-white as she was, ever seen such a thing? Would she be able to deal with others if they came?

I lunged at the creature, the silver of my knives singing through the thick air. I whirled away from its hands, ducked beneath its arm, and came up behind it. Two simultaneous slices did it: it crashed to the ground, tendons cut. Ignoring the sudden flare and its screeches of rage, I ran for the door.

Outside the building, all was eerily quiet. Any potential spectators were closed safely behind their curtains. As I fumbled open my car door, I glanced up and saw the ruddy glow through my windows. I could see no sign of Leia; maybe she was still running. So should I, then. My engine protested as I pushed my car, driving until the frantic beat of my heart began to slow. Finally, I pulled over, leaning my forehead on the steering wheel to release a stream of curses.

I knew the kind of people who could send that thing. I wasn’t eager to meet them again.

There was a rustle in the backseat, and I spun, my blade at the person’s throat before I could register their face. Leia went very still, one hand clamped onto the passenger seat for support. “Just me,” she said.

“What else do you know?” I asked, hearing the ragged edge in my voice. “Why did you bring me into this?”

Her eyes went distant for a moment, and then she leaned slowly away from the knife. “I don’t know much. The police raided our house last week. I wasn’t there; my parents wouldn’t tell me what the police expected to find, only to be careful with them. They’re not criminals,” she said sharply, as if heading off my argument. I raised my hands, then set my blade aside.

“If they’re not criminals, then why the police trouble?” 

Leia shook her head. “I only know bits and pieces. Snatches of overheard conversation, dark looks. Father’s been having trouble with the other council members. Something’s happening there, I’m not sure what. He and the mayor have never seen eye to eye…”

“And the mayor is as corrupt as they come. Most of the council besides.” I narrowed my eyes. “And the police commissioner—the mayor’s chief enforcer. If something happened to your parents, and there was bad blood with the mayor, they might not investigate too closely. You must have known that; that’s why you came to me, isn’t it? Except…”

“Except what?”

“Someone wants you,” I said. “And if I were looking for you, I’d have a watcher on that house. Someone must have followed us.” 

“Get me out of the city.” Leia’s grip on the seat tightened, and she leaned forward, intense. 

“You don’t pay me enough to get mixed up in _that_ ,” I said.

“So I’ll pay you more,” she said, waving a hand as if to brush aside that concern. “Get me out of the city, and help me find this Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“We’ll have to ditch the car,” I said with regret. If they’d watched us, they knew it. “We’ll need to find transport out, change clothes, hide our faces…”

“I can get us transport,” Leia said. “Let’s go to the Cantina.”

I laughed. “How do you know _that_ place?” 

“You’ll see,” Leia said, a tiny smile curling her lips. 

“Tease,” I told her, and drove.

I didn’t like the Cantina; rough crowd, too many familiar faces. It had a longer name, but no one ever called it that. When we entered, we were immediately pressed in a crowd that smelled of cigarettes and sweat. Leia walked confidently up to the bar and leaned there, ordering a drink. I held back, watching her. 

She had left the coat in my car, but in her neat skirt suit she ought to look out of place. Instead, she looked easy, more natural than she had looked in my office. I stood out, I knew; I wore blood-red lipstick, pumps, curled hair. I could not relax, eyes searching for trouble. I caught a man watching me with interest and forced myself to join Leia at the bar.

“What are we looking for?” I asked in a low voice.

Leia turned, and raised her drink to someone she saw over my shoulder. I had realized before that she strove to control her speech. Now, I realized how stiffly, how formally, she had really talked. Her voice was warm and a little rough as she said, “I just found him. Come on.”

A little drunk on that voice, I held back a moment before I followed. _Trouble,_ whispered my caution. But I already knew that. 

Leia settled into a booth beside a man who looked tousle-haired and a little bleary. His face lit up at the sight of her, and he pulled her in with an arm around her waist, shouting something through his grin. She knocked his shoulder lightly with her fist and put her face against his neck. So that was how she knew this place. She wouldn’t be the first rich girl to come down to this part of the city for an ill-advised fling. 

I took an empty seat across from them and waited for one of them to look up. It was the man, with a wary expression that changed quickly to—surprise, recognition, disbelief. “Qi’ra?” he said. Leia lifted her head, looking up at him in question, then at me.

“No time,” I said faintly, my heart beating too fast. My right ear rang, and it took me a second to decide whether it was a true sound I was hearing, or the sudden strange panic. I forced a deep breath, then put my hands on the table and pasted on a smile. “Listen to what she has to tell you.”

With a wounded look my way, the man turned his gaze to Leia. “Tell me what?”

I didn’t hear what she said; she put her mouth to the man’s ear to explain. _Qi’ra._ I didn’t know that name, but that meant nothing. I had no idea what my birth name was; I had simply chosen a new one. Being reminded of my lost first life here was not a good thing. I was rattled enough knowing any of these people might suddenly recognize me. My old patron, as he liked to call himself, had run one of the criminal organizations that ran through this city like rot. I had done his dirty work, and I was sure there were others like me in here, people I’d faced off with or worked alongside. I had met plenty such people, since Vos’ death, but I couldn’t afford to now.

The man with Leia was not one of those people.

“Okay, okay.” The man’s voice cut into my racing thoughts, loud. He threw a couple of bills onto the table and stood, pulling Leia with him. “She coming?” He looked at me, frowning, and said, “You’re coming.”

“That’s the plan.” I bared my teeth at him. “Lead the way.”

* * *

I opened my eyes to the dark intimation of fields through cold glass. I sighed and rolled my head back, trying to ease the cricks in my neck. 

“So,” came a voice, and I tensed. Leia had introduced the man who was getting us out of town as Han. Leia and I had spent the drive out of the city huddled together under a blanket in the back, then chosen the new arrangement at a fueling station with only one pump. Han and I agreed that Leia should stretch out on the back seat. I hadn’t considered that it would leave me up front with him.

I turned to lean my head back against the window, facing Han, and waited for him to speak again.

“Leia introduced you as Argent, and you’re doing a damn good job of pretending you don’t know me.” I drew breath to speak, but he held up a hand, glancing sidelong at me. “I just want to know why.” The look on his face wasn’t the puppy-dog expression he’d turned on me in the bar; he just looked tired. Older than I’d thought, when I first saw him. It took the wind out of my sails.

I let my eyes drift to the straight road in front of us. “What do you think you know about me?” I said softly.

“Qi’ra,” he protested, and I flicked my eyes to him. He hunched his shoulders. “Fine. You and me, we go way back. Back to when we were kids on the street. Got caught up in some bad stuff with the White Worms together.” His hand tightened on the steering wheel, relaxed. “I thought you’d…” His voice was a wisp, almost too quiet for me to make out.

I swallowed, my throat aching. “You thought I’d died,” I managed, blinking hard. The silence stretched between us. “I did,” I said finally. “Die.” His head jerked up, and he stared at me. “Eyes on the road,” I admonished, without any heat. There was no one but us out here, and the occasional cow. He obeyed, but I could feel his bewilderment as an almost physical force in the small space.

“I died, and I was resurrected,” I said, my voice as light as if I spoke of someone far away whom I had never met. “I hadn’t been dead long, and the man who did it got nearly all of me back—my body whole, my mind sharp. _Nearly_ all of me.” I ran my fingers over my right ear, and he took the meaning of the rest of it.

“You really don’t remember.” He sounded almost defeated, and when I looked at him, there was a tight little furrow between his eyebrows. His eyes stayed fixed on the road. I reached out, heart beating fast, and ran a finger over his knuckles. 

“What was I? A girlfriend?” I said, keeping my tone the same, almost teasing.

He snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned. He held it against his chest, still not looking at me. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

That _yes_ contained worlds. And I could only sense the surface, not remember the wealth of meaning beneath. For the first time in years, I felt the loss of my former self keenly, as if someone had torn a hole right through the center of my chest. 

“It’s just as well. You have her to think of,” I said.

“That’s not why I—”

“Han,” I said sharply. “Forget it. There’s no point remembering a person who doesn’t exist anymore.”

My pretended sleep took a long time to shift to real sleep. My thoughts churned, and I tried to tell myself what I had told Han. I could not be that girl again, even if I could remember. My last thought, before I finally slipped away, was envy: whoever Qi’ra had been, someone had cared for her. She had _let_ someone care for her. 

I dreamed of lips on the back of my neck, and strong arms around my waist.

I woke again to sunlight in my eyes and an argument. 

“No, that wasn’t the turn! I—”

There was a crackle of paper, an emphatic _crunk_ as if a finger had stabbed at the paper. “I am looking at the map right now, you ridiculous man-creature, and I’m telling you, we needed to turn at that juncture.”

“So we’ll find a way back around. What the hell are we going to find out here, anyway? I thought you said this was all about city politics. You gonna ask some hick for help with that?”

I sat up, looking around me at the brown fields. “The info is good. He’s out here. Have you really been driving all this time? I told you to wake me.”

“I didn’t need the sleep,” Han grumbled, but even I could tell that was a lie. He pulled over with a sudden sideways motion of the car, and Leia stifled a yelp, catching herself against my seat. Han stomped out of the car and stood with his hands on the small of his back, turning in slow circles to look at the landscape. “You think you’re so smart, you find it,” he called, not looking at either of us.

“Fine by me,” Leia said, half-under her breath and laughing. I started to move, and Leia said, “Oh, don’t. He hates it so much when I drive. Serves him right for being so stubborn.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door, then rolled down the window. I could tell she was about to launch into more of what, from the sound of it, was meant to be pleasant banter.

“Don’t. I don’t think he’s…” Leia turned to me, frowning a little, and I pressed my lips together, trying to think of some way to phrase it. “We have history. Nothing that matters now, but we had a…fight, sort of, while you were asleep.” I didn’t want to make this road trip any more fraught than it already was, and I could see this Han storming off if he got irritated enough.

“Ah. So that’s why he’s acting like he sat on a beehive this morning. I thought it was just the lack of sleep.” Leia squeezed my arm. “Thanks for the heads up.” Her forehead wrinkled, and she met my eyes. “You _are_ sure he’s in Anchorhead?”

“As sure as I can be,” I said. Han had taken us back to his place after we left the Cantina; I gave Leia time to catch him up on matters and went out to do some sniffing around. Time was short, so I went to a source I tried to question only when I really needed to: the phantom of the river. They always required payment in blood, but they could give you answers, if you had the skill to hear them. Sorcerers needed special rituals to make them ready. I had discovered that my ear heard the phantom perfectly. _Anchorhead,_ they had told me, bending me double with the pain of their voice. _Go to Anchorhead._

The tiny dot on the map turned out to be little more than a cluster of shops and a tiny church, and roads branching out into farmland. At the fueling station, we hailed a sandy-haired young man sitting on the bed of a pickup truck. “Obi-Wan Kenobi?” He frowned. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Maybe… Old Ben, lives on his own out towards Jundland. I think his last name’s Kenobi. Maybe he knows Obi-Wan?”

“Listen, kid, could you maybe show us where he lives on the map? We don’t—”

Leia had put a hand on Han’s arm, and she leaned in, smiling. “It’s really very important that we find Obi-Wan.”

The boy traced the route, showing us a place where a road not marked on the map would turn off the one we were on. Leia thanked him, and we all climbed back in. Leia let out a long breath. “What if this is all some wild goose chase?” she said. “Even if we find Obi-Wan, how would he know anything helpful?”

It was something I’d thought, in quiet moments on this trip, but I thought chasing after nothing was as good an occupation while we regrouped as anything. But Han reached back for Leia’s hand, squeezing it. “You’d always have wondered,” he said quietly, just for Leia. She raised his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to the knuckles, smiling.

“You’re right. Let’s go,” she said.

Old Ben’s house was run-down but tidy; everything in the brown yard seemed to be in its place, and the front door was freshly painted, though the rest of the house was peeling and dirty. Leia knocked, while Han and I stood in the yard. After a few minutes, the door cracked open. I could see a flinty, unfriendly eye through that crack. “Yes, what is it?” the man said.

“I’m looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Leia said. As the door looked distinctly likely to swing back closed, she added, “My name is Leia Organa.” With an incredulous creak, the door opened instead, and the man—I could see that his hair was white, but I couldn’t quite guess at his age—peered over Leia’s shoulder at us. 

“And who are the others?”

“My friends,” Leia said firmly. 

“Well.” He stood looking at us a moment longer, then said, “You’d better come inside, then.”

There weren’t enough chairs; I leaned on the wall, though I took the water the man offered happily. “Are you Obi-Wan, then?” I asked. It seemed a safe guess.

“Yes,” he said, the word coming out of him reluctantly. “Though it’s been a long time since I heard that name.”

“We’re looking for information,” Leia said. “My mother—” 

“Breha, yes.” There was an uneasiness in Kenobi’s eyes, and he busied himself with empty cups, putting them one by one on a shelf. Leia stepped forward, taking a cup from his hand and setting it aside. 

“My mother and father are dead,” she said in a steady voice, as if it hadn’t happened last week. The man sighed, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I am sorry for that,” he said. “Please, sit. And tell me what you came to ask me about.”

Leia sketched out the bare bones of the story for him, while Obi-Wan nodded, looking more and more troubled. “She told you your father had learned who you were?” he said at the end of it, rubbing his chin. “This is bad,” he said under his breath. “Very bad.”

“Why? I knew that I was adopted, but why would my—my _birth_ father want me dead?” Leia burst out.

“I don’t think that he would want you dead,” Obi-Wan said. “But I think that he would want you for his own purposes, and that others might want you dead to prevent him from making contact with you.”

“Tell me why,” Leia said, and there was a dangerous note in her voice. I remembered, again, all that she had endured recently.

“Your father,” Obi-Wan said, and stopped a moment. He closed his eyes, as if praying for the words. “He and I were good friends once. But that was long ago—before he went crooked. Before he came under Mayor Palpatine’s influence. I understand he’s police commissioner these days.”

“Commissioner Skywalker,” I said flatly. Palpatine’s bully boy, the terror of neighborhoods like mine. _That_ was Leia’s father? Things suddenly made a lot more sense: Palpatine’s favorites vied fiercely for scraps of his favor, and Skywalker had been in the top spot for years. They would take any chance to get at him. 

“Why would they want to stop him meeting me?” Leia asked. In his seat, Han looked horrified and worried, but Leia was taking it coolly. I wondered what it was costing her. 

“Because anyone with sense would want to stop that,” Obi-Wan snapped, rising suddenly to his feet. “Don’t try to fight him. Run far away. That’s my advice to you.”

“But you haven’t—”

“No. I was sworn to secrecy the night you were born, and I won’t break that pact. Not for you, not for anyone.” Obi-Wan went to the door and opened it. “I think it’s time you left. Go make a new life, Leia Organa.”

Leia did not give up the argument happily, but finally we left, with her fuming in the center of our group. She asked to drive, and neither Han nor I was ready to argue with her just yet. She pushed the car hard on the straight, empty roads; the only direction she seemed to have in mind was _away_ , and the fields blurred on either side.

Finally, she turned in to a roadside motel. “I haven’t had a real sleep in…a while,” she admitted. Han cupped the back of her neck once they were out of the car, and Leia leaned into him. 

They got a room, and I started to ask for a second, when Leia reached out, taking my hand. She shook her head minutely, and I followed them, my head spinning. Why? She barely knew me; surely, she must want time alone with Han.

As soon as the door closed, Leia put her head against Han’s chest and began to cry, clutching at the front of his shirt. I don’t think either of us expected it; he met my eyes briefly over her head, startled, then wrapped his arms around her, hushing her. 

“I’m just—so—angry at everyone,” Leia said viciously between sobs. “I’m angry at my parents for dying and for keeping secrets, I’m angry at the people who killed them, I’m angry at Obi-Wan Kenobi, I’m angry at Anakin Skywalker. I’m sick of the whole horrible mess back in the city, everyone at each other’s throats, cheating and stealing and—and _lying_ , all of the time.”

“I know,” Han said, soothingly. Leia wrenched herself away, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. She turned her back to both of us, getting herself back under control, then stalked back to stand between us. 

“I’m sick of mysteries,” Leia said. “So clear one up for me. Just one. What’s the history here?” She pointed her finger between Han and me.

Han was the first to speak, dragging his eyes up from the floor. “I loved her,” he told Leia. “A long time ago.”

I laughed, a rusty sound. Exhausted myself, I told the plain truth. “I don’t remember.”

“And she doesn’t remember,” Han said, voice expressionless. “It’s in the past.”

“I was _dead_ ,” I cried, whirling on him. “Don’t you think I would remember having— _anyone_ —if I could? All I have done since the moment I came back is fight to live a life that is my own. Now here I am, caught up in your troubles, and you remind me over and over again that all I have is myself.” I gestured between all three of us, a slanted triangle, and caught my breath. I had not let myself know that I envied them both, unsure which I wanted to be, which I wanted to have. 

Two soft footsteps, and Leia was in front of me, reaching up to cup my face in her hands and pull me in. Her lips were sweet as honey, warm as her voice, and I wrapped my hands around her wrists and kissed her back with a groan. 

This time, when lips on the back of my neck disturbed my sleep, I woke and found warm bodies bracketing mine. I looked over my shoulder, and found Han looking back at me, a nameless emotion in his eyes. I thought it matched something unnameable in my chest. I turned, and settled my head in the crook of his neck, and let this—whatever it was—carry me away.

* * *

A plume of smoke on the horizon was the first sign something was wrong. 

When we had woken, Leia had been calm again, but determined. We would drive back to Obi-Wan’s and see if we could wheedle more information out of the old man. Something had settled between all of us; the silence in the car had no sharp edges that morning. The land was so flat out here sometimes you could see for miles, so we saw the finger of smoke curling upwards long before we got to Obi-Wan’s house.

It was still burning when we reached it. Leia cried out in dismay, and Han jumped hastily out of the car to catch her before she could plunge in to look for Obi-Wan. I wrapped the edge of my coat over my face and stepped close, peering in through the wreckage to see if I could see anything. 

“Qi’ra, don’t—Leia, will you stay put?” I felt Han’s arm around my waist, and he pulled me away from the house as it made an ominous creaking noise. “Death wishes, the both of you,” he grumbled. 

“Han!” Leia’s shout came from around the corner of the house. Han and I looked at each other, then ran. 

The old man was sprawled there, the blood at his midsection dried nearly brown. A door behind him looked as if it had been broken open, but too late to do him any good. “You don’t need reminding,” I told Leia, “but this is the second house fire around you in two weeks.”

Something glinted in Obi’Wan’s hand, and I bent to pry his fingers open. I stood, staring at the object I held in my hands: a medallion, three concentric circles of alternating colors, one half of the face white then gold then white again, the other gold, white, gold. 

“What’s that?” Han asked.

I showed him. “Crimson Dawn,” I said, feeling sick. “That’s the organization Vos belonged to—the man who brought me back.”

“You think he’s involved?” Han asked.

“No.” I laughed unhappily. “I killed him when I took my freedom. But there were others higher.” I looked to see if he flinched from me, but he just looked grim.

Leia still stared at the burning house, but she turned slowly to face us. “Will you come back to the city with me?” she asked, eyes flashing between us. Han shifted uneasily, and I thought about my hard-won freedom. We might lose anything, fighting a hopeless battle with the web of corruption there. We would be fools to try.

I said yes.

**Author's Note:**

> skazka - the second I saw mention of film noir Qi'ra in your letter, I thought: I need this. That and your trick likes were quite inspirational. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Also, because the image wouldn't go away, this fic is accompanied by [an illustration.](https://i.imgur.com/fhdFR20.png)


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